The history of the Fehrensehturm is fascinating. The guy who got it built basically lied and embezzled government money to make it happen.

He also wanted to surround the Alexanderplatz park with Commie Block housing. They only got two of the buildings built (fortunately). His full plan included tearing down the Berlin Cathedral, Marienkirche Cathedral, and the Humboldt Forum. Those are all Berlin icons today.

Just the 20khz whine that’s always there.

One to change it and seven to file the paperwork.

I visited a museum today. They had audio guides available. I found they had a guide in a “easy” version of German.

I am so happy they had the easy (leicht Sprache) guide. I managed to understand about half of the sentences and got some nice in-context listening practice.

I also started listening to some B1 German YouTube conversational videos and I’m doing okay at times.

I’ve also got a Scratch Programming book in German. It’s written to elementary school level and it’s great for simple technical language, which is a speciality that I’m going to need soon. Very nice stuff to work with.

Badass. Keep it up people.

OP is also complaining because he is trying to pirate the game. The process of stripping the DRM is better documented on Windows than on Linux, and somehow it’s the fault of the Linux ecosystem.

When we moved to a developed nation from the US, I started commuting via train. My reading logs for books have gone through the roof. I also get to practice languages and use the time to generally enjoy my day. Driving a car never allowed this kind of living well.

I’m up to about 230 days car-free and it’s wonderful.

To quote a novel of greatness:

“In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”

And somehow it led to me using Linux like fraking forever.

STD’s aren’t diagnosed (mostly) just by looking at people. That’s exactly why they’re so tough to eradicate.

Wear protection and protect yourself. You did just fine here. If he is unwilling to be up to your safety needs, then he’s not worth keeping around.

Of fuck. I’m not far behind you on that 30 year number. Wtf happened?

This FIFA event might be the US version of the 1936 Olympics.

Oh, don’t worry, someone’s got a solution for you. Hopefully it’ll cost even more than a normal tow.

Though the CDU/CSU party keeps trying to move right to get some of those A* voters and it’s not working.

I can still log into my Slashdot /. account, I think. That’s from 1997-98?

Another company who has a tow truck might be really happy to know how many of those cars are parked illegally. Find the scummiest one you can too.

Yeah, it’s insane how entitled people get about using public spaces to store their private metal boxes just because the boxes have wheels.

Strange that once you start having ways to make people identify themselves the government would expand it’s use! Who would have foreseen that?

I played soooo much CivCTP (one). It’s a weird cousin of the Civ games since there was some kind of falling out with Sid Meier at the time. The company couldn’t call it Civilization 3, so it’s this “definitely not Civ” set of games from the era.

The coolest part was network play. In 1999 that was a huge deal. We had one game go all night. My buddies got good start points. I was on a glacier in the Antarctic.

By 8am I started sinking their newly discovered wooden ships with submarines and dropping nukes on their cities. We called it done at that point.

Currently reading my A2/B1 middle difficulty German story book.

I read some kids Easter books this week.

We travelled on trains and I managed asking some questions as well as ordering food in German.

I’m rereading some Dragonball books.

I’ve spoken with some more neighbors, but not nearly enough.

The big motivator is that I’ve applied for a huge opportunity that would require much better German speaking in about 12 months. If I get the job it’ll be do or die time. Machen oder toten zeit!

Having moved from the US to the EU recently (but having visited for 25+ years). Yes, the food is better in the EU.

The US food is over processed sugar infused sawdust unless you work hard to get specialized and direct from small farms sources.

Here in the EU I walk to any corner store or street vendor and it’s consistently amazing.

Bonus fun: Spokane’s city govt named a parking garage a historic building worthy of subsidizing for preservation. It also won an award for ‘excellence in use of concrete’. Spokane’s just that awesome.

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2025/oct/20/getting-there-spokanes-parkade-becomes-one-of-few-/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkade_Plaza